About “We Know”

The ominous music underlying “We Know” fittingly calls back James Reynolds' part in “Say No To This,” which gives us a good hint that something’s about to go down. Jefferson, Madison, and Burr approach Hamilton with apparent evidence of his embezzling government funds. Hamilton responds by revealing his affairwith Maria Reynolds.

In November 1792, more than a year after Hamilton’s affair with Maria started, her husband James was arrested on charges of forgery and illegal speculation. Reynolds attempted to implicate Hamilton in the scheme he was accused of. In reality, it wasn’t Jefferson, Madison, and Burr who confronted Hamilton, but rather James Monroe, Frederick Muhlenberg, and Abraham B. Venable, who had visited Reynolds in prison. However, Miranda casting Jefferson, Madison, and Burr in a conspiratorial role isn’t without historical precedent either. Hamilton’s good friend Robert Troup wrote to him in June of 1791 warning of an alliance bent on his destruction:

There was every appearance of a passionate courtship between the Chancellor—Burr—Jefferson and Madison when the two latter were in Town. Delenda est Carthago I suppose is the Maxim adopted with respect to you.

Another man might have been brief or elliptical. Instead, as if in need of some cathartic cleansing, Hamilton briefed them in agonizing detail about how the husband had acted as a bawd [pimp] for the wife; how the blackmail payments had been made; the loathing the couple had aroused in him; and his final wish to be rid of them. When the three legislators realized that the scandal involved marital infidelity, not government corruption, at least one of them “delicately urged me to discontinue it as unnecessary,” Hamilton recalled. “I insisted upon going through the whole and did so.”

After Hamilton showed them details of Reynolds' extortion, the three men agreed to keep the details of Hamilton’s exculpatory affair secret.

Interestingly, when Hamilton confronted Monroe about leaking the original letters to Jefferson, an offended Monroe (who totally did it) challenged Hamilton to a duel, but it never happened because the tense situation between them was defused by—wait for it—Aaron Burr.

Burr also represented Maria in her divorce from James Reynolds. Like his own daughter Theodosia, Burr also helped secure an education for Maria’s daughter Susan.

What historical event is this song about?

Historically, James Monroe and Fredrick Muhlenburg confronted Hamilton about the information related to his affair, though the two did not know that it was an affair at the time. James Reynolds was convicted, and jailed for participating in a scheme involving unpaid back dues for Revolutionary War veterans. He used his knowledge of Hamilton’s payments to get his way out. Reynolds knew this would put Hamilton in a difficult position, either admitting to his affair or to the money laundering charges. Hamilton obviously chose to admit to the affair, as exhibited in this song.

(Jefferson technically did not actually confront Hamilton about this, but James Monroe shared Hamilton and Maria Reynolds' love letters with Jefferson.)